‘Light in the Circle’ was designed in 2006 for the children of two ethnical enclaves in Metohija, a region covering the southwestern part of Kosovo. In the village of Velika Hoča and in a district of the town of Orahovac, about a thousand people belonging to diverse minority groups including Ashkali, Egyptians, Serbs and Bosniaks live confined in narrow areas, under the permanent protection of KFOR units. They have no freedom of movement and lack access to basic rights such as safety, work, higher education, medical care and reliable water and electricity supplies. Most of the children were born during or after the 1999 conflict. They have never experienced anything different. The project’s aim is to provide them with the possibility to confront, narrate and illustrate their individual perception of reality. Given the enclaves’ unique circumstances within today’s Europe, ‘Light in the Circle’ also aims at gathering memories and testimonies to document the effects of isolation, deprivation and civil resistance on children.

Deep winter, 2006. The Literary Society of Belgrade organises a humanitarian trip to two of the last non-Albanian enclaves in southeastern Kosovo. Writers, poets and a few guests embark on an old bus carrying books, Red Cross first-help kits, sweets and treats. The main purpose of the trip, however, is to bring the relief of poetry, prose and company to a completely secluded population. More than the penury of basic supplies, the rampant poverty and the impossibility to move freely, social and cultural isolation are the most challenging aspects for the enclaves’ inhabitants, we are told.

The truth in this statement reveals itself as soon as we reach our destination, after a perillous and seemingly never-ending ride through icy, hostile landscapes. On a small square in the upper part of the town of Orahovac, a cheerful swarm greets us. Three elderly gentlemen play traditional songs on their accordions, while freezing people sing and dance under the amused gaze of Austrian KFOR soldiers, standing at an appropriate distance.

In the auditorium of the makeshift elementary school – unfinished brick-facade, dangling cables and missing windows – we all gather to listen to the poems. Then we’re offered liquor and taken on a visit of the enclave, which doesn’t take long because it is very tiny: it measures only 300m in length, and almost nothing in width. Just a fraction of a street, to be precise, which besides the school comprises a bunch of cramped-up houses, a tiny ambulatory, an improvised shop selling modest goods, a dilapidated soccer pitch, a church and an overfilled cemetery. Nowhere to put the dead, people say. There’s no space anymore. On the graves, slices of bread, glasses of wine or cigarettes are offered – according to their personal preferences – to the ones who left.

The line that divides the enclave from Albanian territory is invisible. You can go up to that streetlight, not one step further, a boy tells me. What happens if you go any further? I ask. It’s at your risk and peril, but I don’t advise you to try. Anything could happen. People disappear. Besides, the KFOR won’t let you.

We leave Orahovac for Velica Hoča, the second enclave, situated just a few kilometers further south-east. Same greeting, same happiness. They seem a bit luckier, because instead of just a street they have the whole village for themselves. On top of the hill, however, a Swiss KFOR camp betrays the illusion of idyllic peacefulness the place exhudes.

Velica Hoča is one of the rare villages in Metohija where prevalently Serbian minorities survived and remained after 1999. It was named “The place with God’s Blessing” by the writer and Nobel-laureate Peter Handke. It appears in historical records since as early as the 12th century, and was known both for its fine wineyards as for the many churches and monasteries that constellate its territory.

We end up in the school’s basement, are offered simple but extraordinarily tasty food, drink Hoča wine and dance to live music until the tiles that line the walls and ceiling drip and sweat. We spend the night dispersed in the villagers’ homes, who seem thrilled to host us.

In the morning, once the celebrations have lost their effervescence, there is time to talk. When the KFOR troops first arrived they took us for the bad guys, my host recounts. They seemed afraid of us, I don’t know what they’ve been told. They kept at a distance and refused to establish any contact with us. We’ve spent months with our telephone lines cut, with no electricity and water, unable to leave. We couldn’t even send letters, the postal service didn’t work. We’ve only survived thanks to the fertility of our soil and because we were all looking out for each other. Ugly things happened back then… children killed in the surrounding fields as they were harvesting, people disappearing and never coming back… we’ve seen it all. The kids pay the highest price, because they’re born into this and know nothing else. They never experienced normality, ever. Many of them have never even set foot outside the perimeter of the village. Today we’re slightly more comfortable, because we are getting some help from outside, but there are no jobs here, life is difficult. We get water and electricity supplies only for a few hours a day, even in winter, randomly. People have adapted and developed astuces to keep warm, see in the dark and cook. Candles, gas cookers and buckets of water are always stored for emergency. But we’re not leaving our land, even if they try to push us away.

Our host then takes us to visit some of the thirteen churches that are still standing. Why are the saints’ eyes all carved out? I ask. Oh, it’s the Ottomans who poked them out, they didn’t want the saints to witness the bloodbath.

Useless to say, this trip marked a pivotal moment that changed my perspectives on life. I could not forget these people. Months passed and I kept thinking about them. They had imprinted a beautiful lesson of courage, nobility and dignity in me. I wanted to do something for them, especially for the children, who grow up deprived both of the essential benefits of external inputs, as well as of the possibility to communicate themselves to the world beyond their invisible borders. I designed ‘Light in the Circle’ for them, to give them a voice and make them visible.